Scotland
Hoy
A 137-metre sandstone stack stands alone in the Atlantic, defying every storm thrown at it.
The Old Man of Hoy stands 137 metres tall and alone in the sea off Orkney — a sandstone pillar that loses rock to every storm and will not stand forever. The walk to reach it crosses moorland so empty the only landmark is the growing silhouette of the stack against the sky.
Hoy is the second-largest of the Orkney Islands and by far the most dramatic, its hills and cliffs a stark rebuke to Orkney's characteristic flatness. The Old Man — first climbed in 1966 and scaled again the following summer before a live BBC audience of millions — is among the tallest sea stacks in Britain and one of Scotland's most iconic rock forms. Rackwick Bay on the west coast keeps a beach built entirely of wave-rounded red sandstone boulders the size of footballs, and the Dwarfie Stane, a tomb hollowed from a single sandstone block fifty centuries ago, is the only rock-cut tomb of its kind in northern Europe. Great skuas patrol the RSPB moorland above the path, and the ferry across from the Orkney Mainland sets the day's unhurried terms.
Solo
The walk to the Old Man across empty moorland, the stack growing with every step — solo walking at its most elemental.
Friends
The moorland crossing, the stack reveal and Rackwick's boulder beach build a group walk on miles of shared anticipation.
- The Old Man of Hoy loses rock to every storm and will not stand forever.
- The approach crosses open moorland with the stack's silhouette as the only landmark.
- Rackwick's beach is built of red sandstone boulders rounded like footballs.
- The Dwarfie Stane is northern Europe's only rock-cut tomb, hollowed five millennia ago.
Beremeal bannocks and Orkney cheese, packed for the moor.
Everything else is what you carry across on the boat from Stromness.
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